Chapter 4
Later that night I am sedated and laid out in a lab for testing. I did not expect this turn of events, but it’s one of my worst fears. Being mauled to death. Being opened up was close to second, because it was the same, just slower and more torturous.
I awoke in a claustrophobic lab, so tiny and enclosed, with a tube in my mouth, feeding me minerals or something. But I also have a lab technician taking samples of everything while I’m shackled down. My hair, my saliva, my blood, my skin, my nails, my ear wax, the wetness from my eyes. Little samples of everything.
The most I’m cut is a piece of skin from the back of my hand.
It hurt because they didn’t patch it, they only wiped it.
It happens over a period of one or two hours.
And now, past midnight, I’m back in Alpha Skye’s chamber after being hauled by stronger wolves who dragged me by my elbows.
Without the weights and totally naked, I sit on the floor by the window, where I’ve been deposited by the two men.
I know better than to stand, so I kneel and I wait while I feel the sting on the back of my hand.
I am traumatised from the experience because I thought they were going to cut me apart any moment.
I still feel like they are, the fear is still that prominent and real within my gut. I had no certainty about anything in my life anymore and I was sure I was starting to go slowly insane with the lack of control in my life.
Alpha Skye is standing next to me, looking out the window.
“That settles that,” Skye speaks to himself, more than me, “All tests confirmed you are nothing but ordinary. The wolf will soon forget your kindness. Don’t be mistaken. The pup was just confused about your species, excited and playful as they are so young–” Skye turns to me and sees me standing up from my jumpy and unpredictable adrenaline rush.
His death drawl, combined with the arrogance – shakes me up.
Maybe it’s the food giving me energy, but I’m awake, I’m alive and I’m reacting.
“I thought they were going to tear me apart; no one told me it was just small samples!” I hiss manically, holding up my hand, showing him the cut, “No one told me my mother would kill herself. No one told me my father would get torn apart in front of me. Limb. From. Limb. Alpha Skye. I am not only ordinary. I am nothing. I. Am. Nothing.”
Alpha Skye easily turns, very amused by this speech.
“Go on,” he wants to hear more.
“I am going to kill you the first chance I get,” I hiss, smiling – and then losing my smile, as I keep talking, without hesitation and without control, “I am going to kill myself after I kill you and I think that wolf won’t ever forget me because I kicked it first, before I fed it.”
“…go on…” the Alpha’s tone drops...
“No. No. No, I have nothing else to say,” I talk so fast.
Whatever they fed me, it was making me ramble my truth.
I had no self control, I just keep talking.
“Tell me your greatest fear,” the Alpha prods.
Geez.
“Everything.”
“That’s interesting,” Alpha Skye answers like we’re equals, until he says, “Because I fear nothing.”
I stumble back away from him.
He is too still.
Too calm.
Too quiet.
I just said I was planning to kill him.
I had to kill him now before he killed me first.
I spin on my heel and I run. I run in circles and he lets me loose like a rabid animal. He just watches as I look for a weapon of any kind.
But there isn’t a single thing to stab him with, in his chambers.
I simply end up walking away from Skye when he starts stalking towards me.
“Pet.”
Just pet?
I start running. I can’t look at his face. I stare anywhere else as I skirt around the room.
Skye chuckles, “Where are you going?”
Eventually he will corner me, and I feel my fists clenching while my anxieties build and build and build.
I can’t do it.
I can’t do it.
I can’t kill him.
I want to but I don’t know where to start.
And now, looking at the floor, and then staring at my white knuckles on one hand as I bite down on my other pair… chewing on my hand, I am officially cornered between two walls and a large Alpha.
“Calm,” he speaks from above my head, enjoying the massive height differential.
I was tall for a human.
I’m now frozen, looking only at my feet as he inches in from the front, leaving no gap. At the last minute I try to dodge out of his reach but he snatches up my wild hair and snarls, “Ryder.”
I drop to my knees, his hold on my hair is tougher than I expect.
“Just make it quick,” I beg him, I didn’t want to die by Wolf Beast. A snapped neck would be better.
If I couldn’t kill him now –
“I’m sorry about your parents, girl. A tragedy.”
What?
A moment later, Alpha Skye drops to his knees in front of me and unhands my hair.
Opposite one another, he places a hand on my naked shoulder and I still as he cups my cheek with his other hand and then just as quick his lips fly in to steal mine.
It’s a stolen kiss. It literally takes the breath out of me.
I don’t have time for a kiss –
But I’m now close enough to stick my fingers through his eyes, as deep as I can.
So, I bring up my hand, and instead of my fingers flying through his eyes sockets – they land on his neck and I bend my fingers, clawing the nails in uselessly as I think; I should be braver, this won’t kill him.
But I can’t.
Because as I feel Skye’s tender lips on mine, it’s shocked me, and I remember the water he fed me, the… tender generosity of it.
When it wasn’t tender at all, yet it was the most I had ever received from this planet.
I am in a different state of shock, as a warm hot flood rockets through my blood.
Skye’s kiss only deepens with my nails trying to claw his neck, and I end up kissing him back by moving my lips for a split second.
The moment I’ve responded, Skye leans back to read my gaze, while wiping away the blood at his neck and swatting away my hand.
“At least your malleable,” the Alpha has a mannerism I do not understand. I do not know if he is sarcastic or mocking or simply stating a fact.
The Alpha stands, walks around me and places a hand on my head, “Stay,” a light murmured command as he ends up standing behind my back, “You’re some fun but you’re not a priority. Ryder. I have a treat for you later. Be a good girl. Don’t break anything. If you damage anything... I’ll have to punish you. I don’t want to hurt you beyond words…” Skye leans down to my ear, “I could break you with words too, but I think my mouth is enough.”
The Alpha doesn’t wait for me to respond to his hint of malice at the end.
I’m exhausted, but I manage to speak up despite his quick retreat, “You w-weren’t sorry at all.”
Skye answers me.
“I am sorry. I think you are worth the pity, Ryder. Your whole life is a tragedy.”
And then he leaves.
And I’m not sure whether I hate Skye for being so rude, or whether I hate him for leaving that feeling on my lips. Fire burns and lingers throughout my mouth, hot like the sun about to rise within a few hours.